Interdependence between stress, preferred orientation, and surface morphology of nanocrystalline TiN thin films deposited by dual ion beam sputtering Abstract. The effect of substrate bias and nitrogen flow rate on the TiAlN nanocoating structure and morphology has been investigated by using reactive unbalance DC magnetron sputtering. TiAlN nanocoating was deposited on the tungsten carbide insert tool and the structure and morphology were characterized by using XRD and AFM, respectively. The substrate bias was varied between 0 to -221 V and the nitrogen flow rate was varied between 30 to 72 sccm. The results showed that the structure of TiAlN nanocoating consisted of mainly (111) and (200) plane. The structure was significatly influenced by substrate bias in promoting finer crystal size and increased crystal plane spacing while the rms roughness of nanocoating was influenced by substrate bias and nitrogen flow rate.